With the twinkle of Christmas lights bouncing off shop windows and vibrant décor lined up neatly on shelves, some of the stores in Panaji market have transformed into magical bazaars filled with Christmas trees, decorations and other attractions.

However, unlike their usual cheerful countenances on other years, shoppers and shopkeepers wore long faces owing to the impact of demonetization.

Keeping in mind the ongoing financial situation in the country, a Panaji décor store runner, Manisha Desai chose to scale down this time. “We knew we would feel the heat of demonetization and therefore purchased a small stock of decorations to sell. Despite this precaution, business has been very slow,” she said.

Similarly, Girish Pinghe who sells statues and readymade cribs in Panaji lamented, “We had stocked up on change thinking people will bombard us with Rs 2,000 notes. Ironically, people are not turning up at all.”

Lashing out at the Modi government’s autocratic move, Captain Brany, owner of Margao-based Choice Shopping said, “It is a big scam favouring only Modi and top class BJP supporters. Nobody is realizing the outcome of demonetization on common men and the poor. Customers have no money to buy what they want. We have not conducted even 50% of business this year due to demonetization. On other years, people have no space to move around in the shop, but today we have no customers at all.”

Another vendor from Margao said, “Demonetization has caused a lot of problems in our business. It has been a complete mess, sales have gone down drastically.”

Chinese products, however, are flying off the shelves unlike Diwali when people had boycotted them, many store owners said. “Most Diwali products are made in India. But when it comes to Christmas decorations, the best ones are from China. People don’t really have a choice,” said a salesperson at Santosh Polypack stores.

Krishna Gaonkar who has set up a temporary stall in Panaji market exclusively for lights said, “Fairy lights, rice lights and streamer lights are not widely manufactured in India. People specifically want these for Christmas and China is the only place we can source it from. Also, people’s contempt against Chinese products has slowly died down.”

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